My Phone's in my Pocket and I Don't Want Your Hand There!

Below is an interesting post about how users interact with their phone. The key message is pretty simple. If you want to advertise to mobile users, you have to engage them on their terms. People are leaving email behind to use social networks and services such as Twitter for their messaging needs. It's easier to avoid spam and advertising there (for now I guess!) Further, these users see their mobile as the first truly "personal, mass media". Hence, they want to control the experience, and right now, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks on the mobile device allow for this.

12 percent of users first access their mobile social network each day while still in bed, a survey has found. Results from a worldwide survey of 15,000 active itsmy.com users (a mobile only social network based in Munich) found that:

· 16 percent of users don’t have an email account

· 90 percent would increase mobile internet usage if they had a flat rate tariff, a quicker connection and a more capable device

· Average page views per day is 160

· On average 50 percent of users access itsmy.com more than 5 times per day

· Users send from 12 to 34 community messages per day

These results reinforce the widely held belief that the mobile device is the first and only, truly personal, mass media and also signal the decline of email as a communication channel. What is clear (given that some users are accessing their social networks in bed, first thing in the morning) is that any brand wishing to use this medium as an advertising channel cannot simply broadcast or spam in this personal space – it comes as no surprise that users are turning their backs on email given the prevalence of spam, junk and marketing sent over email.

In fact, engaging the user on their terms is really the only way to sustainably create brand equity on mobile. People are more media savvy than ever before and can spread bad brand experiences like virtual wildfire through social networks, twitter and blogs. Any interaction must be on ‘our’ terms – when we want it, where we want it and how we want it. It must not, it cannot invade our privacy otherwise we are ignoring the personal nature of the medium and killing this market before it has even got going. And it must also be based on our interests.

This is where itsmy.com have got it right. They consistently ask their users what they want, what they use itsmy.com for and are therefore able to leverage their single biggest asset – the users themselves. By asking users what they want/think/need, itsmy.com have placed user preference in its rightful place – firmly in the hands of the user. This avoids making usage based assumptions to produce a handful of user segments, and instead allows each user to exist in a segment of their very own. After all we are all individuals.

The survey was carried out from September to November 2008 with users of 30 different operators, across a full range of devices and aged between the age of 16 and 52.

For further analysis of itsmy.com, circle back here soon for Peggy’s in-depth look at the tie up between social search pioneers, Taptu and itsmy.com